Onshore, it's very well extensively done. If you're going to remediate oil-contaminated soil, or even surface water contaminated soil, you can either use the naturally occurring micro-organisms and then add nutrients, things such as nitrogen, and aerate it; just give it enough food so that the micro-organisms can grow and start breaking down the hydrocarbons. All they do is break it down to, hopefully, CO2 and water, but usually it's a partial breakdown and then some other microbes take over. So it's a biodegradation process that usually occurs over anywhere from weeks to hours to years.
Offshore, in the saline environment, it's a little bit different because you can't contain it, or if you can, it's limited containment. There hasn't been as much research on the biological side offshore because of that fact. There is the whole natural biodegradation that occurs anyway. That's why they add the dispersants, to increase the surface area so that the microbes can attack it. The heavier the oils get, the more difficult it is for the microbes to break it down. The naturally occurring micro-organisms are going to occur anyway in the marine environment, but if you want to somehow enhance it, it's much more difficult, because if you want to add nutrients or some kind of medium to enhance the microbial growth, it's really hard to do, because you add it and it just gets dispersed into the ocean.
So there is much less study offshore, but it's quite common onshore. Does that answer your question?